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WOMANHOOD  AND 
RACE-REGENERATION 


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WOMANHOOD  AND 
RACE-REGENERATION 


NEW  TRACTS  FOR  THE  TIMES 

Promoted  by  the  National  Council  of  Public  Morals,  Holborn 
Hall,   London,   W.C. 

TRACTS  PUBLISHED 
"The      Problem      of      Race- Regeneration."     By      Dr. 
Havelock    Ellis    (Editor,    Contemporary    Science 
Series,  etc. ) . 

"The    Methods    of    Race-Regeneration."     By    C.    W. 

Saleeby,     M.D.,     F.R.S.E.,     F.Z.S.      (Author     of 
'•Parenthood  and  Race   Culture,"  etc.). 

"  The  Declining  Birth-Rate  —  Its  National  and  Inter- 
national Significance/'     By  A.  Newsholrue,  M.D. 

"  Problems  of  Sex."    By  Prof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and 

Prof.  P.  Geddes. 
"National   Ideals   and   Race-Regeneration."     By  Rev. 

R.  F.  Horton,  ALA.,  D.D. 
"  Womanhood     and     Race-Regeneration."     By     Mary 

Scharlieb,  M.D.,  M.S. 

TRACTS  IN  PREPARATION 

"  Literature  —  The  Word   of  Life  or  of  Death."     By 
Rev.  William  Canon  Barry,  D.D. 

"Modern  Industrialism  and  Race-Regeneration."     By 
C.  F.  G.  Masterman,  M.A.,  M.P. 

"Religion   and   Race-Regeneration."     By   Rev.   F.   B. 

Meyer,  D.D. 
"  Social   Environment  and   Moral   Progress."     By  A. 

Russell  Wallace,  O.M.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 
"  The    Spiritual    Life    and    Race-Regeneration."     By 

the  Bishop  of  Durham. 
"  Education    and    Race- Regeneration."     By    Sir   John 

Gorst,  LL.D.,  K.C.,  F.R.S. 


il-is'w  GiMCl'S  for  (he  Siiiigvi 


WOMANHOOD 

AND 

RACE-REGENERATION 


BY 
MARY  SCHARLIEB,  M.D.,  M.S. 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1912 


vv 


-   \ 


I  \ 


*   «         •     • , 

■    •  -   •    *       > 


In  compliance  with  current  copyright 

law,  U.  C.  Library  Bindery  produced 

this  replacement  volume  on  paper 

that  meets  ANSI  Standard  Z39.48- 

1984  to  replace  the  irreparably 

deteriorated  original 

1997 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 

By  the 

Rev.  James  Marchant 

These  Tracts  might  have  been  called  "New  Tracts 
for  New  Times,"  since  they  interpret  the  signs  and 
prophecies  of  a  new  world  in  the  making,  demanding 
jhe  application  of  loftier  ideals,  more  widely  embracing 
principles,  and  surer  methods  of  advance  than  have 
hitherto  prevailed.  They  do  not  merely  deplore  and 
combat  the  manifest  evils  of  the  past  and  the  present 
changing  conditions,  but  reveal  the  foundations  of  a 
richer  civilisation.  The  era  of  destructive  criticism, 
of  improving  material  environment  alone,  of  lavish 
care  for  a  short  season  of  the  unfit  merely  to  turn  them 
adrift  at  the  critical  age,  of  reliance  upon  forms  and 
drugs,  hospitals  and  penitentiaries,  police  and  prisons 
and  upon  unfettered  liberty  to  correct  its  own  abuses, 
is  mercifully  passing  away.  We  are  living  in  a  transi- 
tion period,  but  nearer  the  future  than  the  past.  The 
wonderful  nineteenth  century  seems  already  to  have  be- 
come history,  and  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury has  closed.  The  new  spirit  of  the  age,  which  ap- 
peared in  wondrous  guise  on  the  horizon  at  the  watch  of 
the  centuries,  is  becoming  articulate.  It  is  evident  to 
all  who  possess  the  historic  vision  that  we  are  living  in 
the    twilight    before    the    dawn.     The   rapid,   ruthless 

259911 


New  Tracts  for  the  Times 


progress  and  verily  bewildering  discoveries  and  devel- 
opments of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  opening  up  of  virgin  fields  of  reform  and  of  untrod- 
den and  unsuspected  paths  of  advance,  were  heralds  of 
a  new  day,  of  the  nearness  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

These  Tracts,  small  in  bulk,  but  written  by  eminent 
authors,  deal  with  these  profound  and  commanding 
themes  from  this  inspiring  outlook.  If  they  revert  to 
outstanding  present-day  evils,  it  is  because  these  men- 
ace the  future  and  are  a  crime  against  posterity.  Ac- 
count is  taken  of  the  persistent  and  ominous  demand 
for  the  divorce  of  religion  from  morals  and  education ; 
of  the  lowering  of  the  ideal  of  marriage  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  a  temporary  contract  for  that  permanent 
union  which  is  necessary,  to  take  no  higher  ground,  for 
the  nurture  and  education  of  the  next  generation;  of 
the  commercial  employment  of  married  women,  re- 
sulting, to  a  serious  extent,  in  the  neglect  and  dis- 
ruption of  family  life  and  the  displacement  and  unem- 
ployment of  men ;  and  of  the  economic,  social,  and  sel- 
fish influences  which  involve  late  marriages  and  an  ever- 
falling  birth-rate.  The  writers  consider  the  grave  and 
urgent  questions  of  the  wastage  of  child-life ;  the  weak- 
ening and  pollution  of  the  link  between  the  generations ; 
and  the  uncontrolled  multiplication  of  the  degenerate, 
who  threaten  to  swamp  in  a  few  generations  the  purer 
elements  of  our  race.  They  examine  the  disquieting 
signs  of  physical  deterioration;  the  prevalence  of  vice, 
the  increase  of  insanity  and  feeble-mindedness,  and 
their  exhaustless  drain  upon  free-flowing  charity  and 


General  Introduction 


the  national  purse;  the  wide  circulation  of  debasing 
books  and  papers  which  imply  the  existence,  to  a  de- 
plorable extent,  of  low  ideals  amongst  a  multitude  of 
readers;  and  some  of  the  manifold  evils  of  our  indus- 
trial system  which  cause  the  hideous  congestion  of  slum- 
dom  with  its  irreparable  loss  of  the  finer  sensibilities, 
of  beauty,  sweetness  and  light.  These  and  like  griev- 
ous ills  of  the  social  body  are  treated  in  the  "  New 
Tracts  for  the  Times,"  from  the  moral  and  spiritual 
standpoint,  by  constructive  methods  of  redemption,  with 
the  knowledge  of  our  corporate  responsibility  and  in  re- 
lation to  their  bearing  on  the  future  of  the  race. 

The  supreme  and  dominant  conception  running 
through  these  Tracts  is  the  Regeneration  of  the  Race. 
They  strike  not  the  leaden  note  of  despair,  but  the 
ringing  tones  of  a  new  and  certain  hope.  The  regen- 
erated race  is  coming  to  birth;  the  larger  and  nobler 
civilisation  is  upon  us.  It  is  already  seen  that  it  is 
criminal  to  live  at  the  expense  of  the  future,  that  chil- 
dren must  be  wisely  and  diligently  educated  for  parent- 
hood, that  vice  must  be  sapped  at  its  foundations,  that 
it  is  much  more  radically  necessary  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  the  race  through  parentage  than  through 
change  of  environment,  that  the  emphasis  must  shift 
from  rescue  to  prevention.  These  Tracts  turn  the 
searchlight  of  the  twentieth  century  upon  such  problems 
and  seek  to  hasten  the  time  when  true  religion  will  oc- 
cupy its  rightful  place  in  our  human  lives,  and  woman 
her  true  place  in  the  home  and  society,  and  industry 
will  not  deaden  and  demoralise,  and  life  will  be  happier, 


New  Tracts  for  the  Times 


sweeter    and    holier    for    every    man,    woman    and 
child. 

These  Tracts  must  awaken  a  sensitive,  enlightened 
social  conscience  throughout  Great  and  Greater  Britain, 
which  is  being  welded  into  a  more  compact  Empire,  and 
give  voice  and  new  life  to  the  long-silent  and  thwarted 
aspirations  for  a  regenerated  humanity. 

In  their  several  ways,  the  authors  of  these  "New 
Tracts  for  the  Times,"  each  being  alone  responsible 
for  his  or  her  own  contribution,  adopt  this  bracing 
and  hopeful  attitude  towards  the  transcendent  prob- 
lems which  it  is  the  object  of  the  promoters  to  eluci- 
date. 

J.  M. 

National  Council  of  Public  Morals, 

Holborn  Hall,  London,  W.  C. 

September,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     The  Training  op  Women 5 

II    Woman's  Influence  on  the  Kace  ...     17 
III    Women  as  Citizens 46 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

CHAPTEE  I 

THE    TRAINING   OF   WOMEN 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  on  woman  depends  the 
welfare  of  the  race,  for  not  only  is  she  the  parent  most 
intimately  in  contact  with  the  growing  child,  but  her 
influence  is  generally  paramount  both  with  her  husband 
and  with  her  grown-up  family.  It  is  merely  a  truism 
that  the  race  will  be  whatever  the  women  of  the  race 
make  it. 

In  order  that  women  shall  be  fit  for  their  most  im- 
portant position  and  that  they  shall  be  ready  for  the 
great  work  to  which  they  are  called,  it  is  necessary  ( 1 ) 
that  they  should  recognise  their  privileges  and  their 
duties,  and  (2)  that  they  should  receive  the  training 
which  is  to  fit  them  for  their  adequate  discharge.  If 
we  inquire  when  the  training  is  to  begin,  we  get  on  to 
what  may  be  described  as  a  circle.  Every  individual's 
training  really  begins  generations  before  he  is  born,  and 
the  effects  of  each  individual's  training  extend  for  gen- 
erations into  the  future;  therefore,  in  discussing  the 
training  of  woman,  it  matters  little  whether  we  start  in 
her  prenatal  days  or  at  the  time  when  she  herself  is  the 
expectant  mother.  Life  fulfils  its  cycle,  and  our  con- 
sideration of  it  may  begin  at  any  point.     Let  us,  there- 

5 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

fore,  for  convenience  start  with  the  consideration  of  the 
adolescent  girl,  for  it  is  here  that  differentiation  between 
male  and  female  becomes  marked. 

During  the  years  of  childhood,  usually  until  ap- 
proximately the  fourteenth  year,  the  boy  and  girl  closely 
resemble  each  other  in  physical,  mental,  and  moral  en- 
dowments ;  their  needs  are  much  the  same,  and  they  can 
often  be  educated  together  without  detriment  —  indeed, 
sometimes  with  marked  advantage.  During  the  age  of 
puberty,  which  extends  from  about  14  to  18  years,  the 
girl's  development  proceeds  on  different  lines  from  that 
of  her  brother.  One  characteristic  of  this  development 
is  its  astonishing  rapidity  and  its  thoroughness.  Every 
part  of  the  organism  responds  to  a  touch  as  apparently 
magic  as  that  which  clothes  the  earth  with  verdure  and 
flowers  in  the  spring,  and  gladdens  its  sunny  hours  with 
the  songs  of  the  birds.  On  the  physical  plane  the  girl's 
development  is  great  and  rapid ;  her  growth  for  the  time 
being  outstrips  that  of  her  brother :  there  are  special 
changes  in  the  shape  and  inclination  of  the  pelvic  bones ; 
the  whole  skeleton  rapidly  attains  the  slenderness  and 
grace  characteristic  of  the  human  female.  The  in- 
ternal organs  undergo  a  similar  transformation,  more 
especially  those  that  are  concerned  in  the  function  of 
reproduction,  and  it  is  on  the  perfection  with  which 
they  are  evolved  that  the  adult  shape  of  the  pelvis  de- 
pends. What  are  known  as  secondary  sexual  characters 
become  well  marked :  the  hair  grows  longer  and  becomes 
more  glossy,  the  complexion  clears,  the  eyes  brighten 

6 


The  Training  of  Women 


and  are  more  evidently  than  before  the  windows  of  the 
soul;  the  hands  and  the  feet  appear  to  be  more  in  pro- 
portion and  more  delicately  shaped  as  the  limbs  above 
them  grow  not  only  in  length  but  in  muscular  power 
and  girth. 

At  the  same  epoch  the  girl's  intellectual  capacities 
both  increase  and  alter:  the  marvellous  verbal  memory 
of  childhood  relatively  decreases,  but  this  is  more  than 
compensated  by  the  rise  of  power  of  comparison,  of 
judgment,  and  of  reasoning.  Mere  mechanical  ability 
to  work  sums  frequently  develops  into  mathematical 
ability  to  understand  why  certain  factors  in -problems 
exist,  and  how  they  should  be  solved.  At  this  period 
we  may  also  mark  the  rise  of  love  of  nature,  appreciation 
of  literature,  and  more  especially  of  the  poetic  faculty 
—  a  faculty  which  sometimes  shows  itself  in  a  power 
to  express  itself  poetically,  and  still  more  often  in  the 
power  to  appreciate  the  writings  of  the  greater  poets. 

At  this  age  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  horizon 
appears  to  be  boundless,  while  the  sense  of  vitality  and 
the  daily  increasing  power  of  enjoyment  give  the 
adolescent  girl  a  forestate  of  immortality,  a  belief, 
illusory  though  it  may  be,  that  nothing  can  damp  her 
enjoyment,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  death  to 
cut  short  the  glorious  and  dazzling  career  she  sees  as  in 
a  vision. 

The  religious  and  moral  nature  of  the  girl  undergoes 
a  quite  peculiar  modification.  She  generally  loses  the 
extreme  frankness  and  the   communicativeness   of  the 

7  , 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

child  and  becomes  reserved.  There  is,  indeed,  no  one 
who  would,  she  thinks,  be  likely  to  understand  her. 
Her  schoolfellows  and  sisters  would  probably  laugh  at 
all  the  wonders  she  has  discovered,  while  her  mother's 
girlhood  must  have  been  too  long  ago  for  her  even  to 
retain  any  memory  of  its  joys. 

Such  is  the  highly  complex  and  unstable  creature  who 
in  a  few  brief  years  must  be  trained  to  take  her  place 
as  "  a  perfect  woman  nobly  planned."  Instability  and 
incoherence  must  give  place  to  calm  and  to  trustworthi- 
ness ;  the  problems  of  life  cannot  indeed  have  been 
solved,  but  the  young  woman  must  hold  in  her  hands 
the  key  to  their  solution.  The  task  of  utilising  all  the 
rich  and  abundant  but  effervescent  qualities  of  the 
young  girl  is  a  momentous  one,  such  as  few  of  us  are 
fit  to  undertake,  and  yet.  in  former  days,  it  was  com- 
mitted in  the  most  light-hearted  way  to  any  unmarried 
woman  who  wanted  employment,  and  has  latterly  been 
entrusted  to  almost  any  holder  of  a  University  degree 
who  seeks  entrance  to  the  educational  world.  All  the 
same,  it  is  a  duty  that  would  severely  task  the  wisest, 
kindest,  and  best  of  the  human  race. 

It  seems  as  if  mistakes  had  been  made  in  two  almost 
opposite  directions.  In  a  certain  number  of  cases  the 
girls  in  private  schools  have  been  taught  little  beyond 
languages,  music,  and  other  accomplishments,  while  in 
other  cases  they  have  been  made  to  share  in  the  classical 
and  mathematical  studies  of  their  brothers  without  any 
consideration  for  their  own  mental  and  physical  pecul- 
iarities.    The  knowledge  has  long  been  growing  among 

8 


The  Training  of  Women 


the  experts  of  the  educational  world  that  the  whole  ideal 
of  the  education  of  girls  was  wrong,  and  that  the  meth- 
ods were  faulty.  The  mischief  caused  by  constantly 
recurring  examinations  and  the  trying  amount  of  emula- 
tion they  involve  has  slowly  forced  upon  us  the  conclu- 
sion that  in  order  to  get  the  best  results  in  the  education 
and  training  of  adolescent  girls  a  certain  power  to  vary 
the  curriculum  is  necessary.  It  is  impossible  to  treat 
them  as  though  they  were  machines  warranted  to  turn 
out  work  of  a  certain  quality  and  for  a  certain  length 
of  time.  The  changes  —  physical,  mental  and  moral  — 
that  occur  in  young  girls  are  so  great,  the  development 
of  their  nature  is  so  rapid,  that  the  ordinary  hard  and 
fast  rules  of  school  and  college  are  likely  to  fail  in 
securing  the  maximum  result.  This  point  may  be  il- 
lustrated by  the  experience  of  Exercise  and  Games 
Mistresses  in  Sweden,  who  have  long  been  aware  of  the 
fact  that  although  girls  up  to  puberty  enjoy  their  ex- 
ercises and  profit  by  them  in  the  same  manner  as  do  the 
boys,  yet  the  time  comes  when  exercises  are  badly  done, 
and  when  an  ordinary  amount  of  exertion  induces  an 
extraordinary  amount  of  fatigue.  The  consideration 
that  the  Swedish  teachers  have  been  forced  to  show  to 
pupils  from  11  to  18  years  of  age  is  the  type  of  the  con- 
sideration that  will  have  to  be  shown  on  the  intellectual 
side  of  training.  It  is  not  only  the  delicate,  weedy 
girls,  nor  is  it  the  dull  and  backward  girls  only,  who 
need  to  have  their  curriculum  specially  adapted  to  them ; 
the  feeling  of  slackness  and  disability  appears  to  be  very 
general,  and  it  is  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  that 

9 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

the  work  must  be  varied  with  the  varying  capacity  of 
the  pupil. 

Practically  this  means  that  although  girls  are  quite  as 
able  to  pass  examinations  as  their  brothers,  yet  it  is  most 
undesirable  that  they  should  be  forced  to  do  so  within 
any  definite  limit  of  time.  It  is  also  probable  that  much 
better  results  would  be  obtained  by  the  removal  of  all 
formal  examinations  except  those  that  are  necessary  at 
the  entrance  of  school  life  in  order  to  place  the  child, 
and  the  leaving  examination  at  the  end  of  school  life 
which  is  essential  in  order  that  the  girl's  future  may  be 
planned.  Thus  it  could  be  determined  that  certain  girls 
were  suitable  for  University  degrees,  while  certain  other 
girls  were  better  fitted  for  other  employment,  and  would, 
indeed,  suffer,  rather  than  profit,  by  a  University  career. 
We  must,  however,  definitely  put  aside  the  idea  that  the 
so-called  "  learned  professions "  stand  on  a  really  and 
intrinsically  higher  level  than  do  many  other  honour- 
able and  useful  callings.  Why  should  the  lawyer,  the 
doctor,  and  the  educationist  be  necessarily  more  intel- 
lectual or  better  educated  than  the  engineer,  the  account- 
ant, and  the  domestic  economist?  "Work  is  as  it  is 
done,"  and  the  real  value  of  it  depends  far  more  on 
the  perfection  with  which  it  is  accomplished  than  upon 
its  nature.  To  look  at  the  matter  from  a  slightly  differ- 
ent point  of  view,  is  it  a  higher  aim  and  a  more  useful 
end  in  life  to  become  a  first-rate  mathematician,  or  to 
hold  a  doctorate  of  science,  than  to  be  a  really  adequate 
and    perfectly    adapted    mother    of    a    family?     Great 

mathematicians,  great  musicians,  and  learned  doctors  of 

10 


The  Training  of  Women 


science,  are  no  doubt  distinguished  and  valuable  in  the 
special  line  for  which  they  have  qualified  themselves, 
but  with  the  exception  of  some  few  men  and  women  of 
absolute  genius,  does  the  human  race  owe  as  much  to 
them  as  it  does  to  the  men  and  the  women  who  have 
successfully  endeavoured  to  fit  themselves  for  the  duties 
of  fatberhood  and  motherhood,  of  breadwinner  and  of 
housewife?  Far  be  it  from  me  to  disparage  learning 
or  to  deny  that  women  are  as  capable  as  are  men  of 
University  distinction ;  I  believe  that  they  are  equally 
capable;  I  believe  that  their  brains  are  as  good  and 
clear ;  I  believe  that  their  application  is  as  assiduous  and 
that  their  endurance  is  as  strong ;  but  I  think  that  the 
time  is  comins:  in  which  all  these  valuable  distinctions 
and  degrees  will  be  prized,  not  as  ends  in  themselves,  but 
as  the  means  whereby  untold  benefit  is  to  be  conferred 
on  the  race,  and  that,  especially  in  the  case  of  woman, 
this  intellectual  power  is  held  in  trust  to  pass  on  the 
great  gift  to  the  next  generation,  to  her  own  children 
should  she  be  so  fortunate  as  to  be  a  mother,  to  the  chil- 
dren of  others  should  that  crown  of  womanhood  pass 
her  by. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  something  more  like  the 
ideal  that  we  ought  to  have  before  us  in  planning  a  girl's 
education,  and  that  we  must  have  a  more  sensitive  re- 
gard to  her  peculiar  needs,  and  be  prepared  to  adapt  the 
general  idea  of  the  curriculum  to  the  special  circum- 
stances of  each  student;  not,  however,  that  anarchy 
should  rule  in  our  schools.  The  divine  gift  of  order 
must  be  safeguarded,  but  the  wear  and  tear  would  be 

11 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

appreciably  lessened  if  the  constantly  recurring  exam- 
inations were  minimised  and  if  more  elasticity  existed 
in  the  curriculum. 

This  want  of  elasticity  in  our  curricula  has  been  a 
serious  hindrance.  It  is  true  that  of  late  years  a  mod- 
ern side  has  been  added  to  boys'  schools,  but  the  arrange- 
ment has  seldom  commanded  the  cordial  approval  even 
of  those  who,  as  a  matter  of  duty  and  convenience, 
arranged  it.  In  girls'  schools  it  was,  until  quite  re- 
cently, the  custom  to  expect  all  girls  to  learn  the  same 
subjects:  all  had  to  learn  music,  drawing,  French  and 
German,  no  matter  whether  they  had  any  gifts  for  music 
on  the  one  hand,  or  languages  on  the  other.  The  at- 
tempt to  fit  all  these  young  people  to  an  intellectual 
bed  of  Procrustes  resulted  in  the  loss  of  much  valuable 
time  and  in  the  stunting  of  the  talents  which  children 
really  possessed  by  a  vain  endeavour  to  cultivate  some- 
thing which  did  not  exist. 

Up  to  the  present  time  the  aim  of  education  in  too 
many  cases  seems  to  have  been  the  aim  of  the  drill 
sergeant  —  to  turn  out  a  batch  of  recruits  in  the  same 
mental  garb,  obedient  to  the  same  discipline,  but  in 
whom,  unfortunately,  every  scintilla  of  originality  has 
been  effectually  quenched.  There  is  reason  to  hope  for 
the  abatement  of  this  trouble,  and  in  some  of  the  best 
of  our  girls'  schools  careful  observation  is  directed  to 
the  special  gifts  and  peculiarities  of  each  individual, 
with  adequate  attention  to  the  probable  future  of  each. 

Another  point  needing  our  serious  and  earnest  atten- 
tion in  the  training  of  the  adolescent  girls  is  that  we 

12 


The  Training  of  Women 


must  remember  she  possesses  a  triune  nature,  and  there- 
fore, when  we  have  adequately  provided  for  her  food, 
her  sleep,  her  exercise  and  her  rest,  when  we  have 
adapted  her  school  and  her  subsequent  curriculum  to  her 
mental  needs,  we  have  yet  left  out  of  our  consideration 
the  most  important,  because  the  immortal,  part  of  her 
nature. 

The  religious  and  moral  training  of  our  girls  is  one 
of  the  most  anxious  problems  before  the  nation  at  the 
present  day.  It  appears  for  the  moment  as  if  the  re- 
grettable quarrel  between  the  old  Established  Church 
and  the  young  sects  were  likely  to  end  in  the  secularisa- 
tion of  education.  Various  congresses  of  teachers  and 
of  trades  unionists  have  placed  on  record  their  desire 
to  make  religion  an  extra-scholastic  subject.  In  some 
cases,  no  doubt  sincerely,  it  is  pleaded  that  with  the 
great  variety  of  subjects  to  be  learned  religion  is 
crowded  out,  and,  again,  the  specious  plea  is  advanced 
that  the  parent  is  the  best  teacher  of  religion.  The  ex- 
periment of  secularisation  has  been  tried  in  some  of  our 
South  Australian  colonies,  and  with  absolutely  disas- 
trous results;  the  amount  of  crime  has  so  greatly  in- 
creased during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  and  has 
been  so  evidently  traced  to  the  want  of  religious  and 
moral  principles,  that  a  referendum  recently  taken  re- 
sulted in  a  very  large  majority  of  the  citizens  approving 
of  the  restoration  of  religious  teaching  to  the  curriculum 
in  the  public  elementary  schools.  It  is  quite  evident 
that  if  no  time  can  be  found  for  instruction  in  religion, 
whereas  there  is  time  for  instruction  in  history,  geogra- 

13 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

phy,  arithmetic,  etc.,  the  inference  will  be  made  that 
religion  and  morals  are  of  less  importance  than  these 
other  subjects. 

Secondly,  the  plea  that  the  parent  is  the  best  religious 
teacher  that  the  child  can  have  falls  to  the  ground  when 
we  remember  that  the  average  parent  is  too  busy,  too 
ignorant,  and  too  careless  to  fulfil  this  sacred  trust.  It 
is  true  that  many  —  let  us  hope  that  most  —  women 
teach  their  young  children  some  simple  form  of  prayer, 
but  this  with  the  occasional  reading  of  a  few  verses  of 
the  Bible  constitutes,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  high- 
water  mark.  A  little  questioning  shows  that  young  peo- 
ple are  unable  to  give  any  reason  for  the  faith  that  is 
in  them,  and  are  absolutely  uninstructed  in  the  Bible 
and  in  the  very  rudiments  of  theology.  It  is  not  an 
uncommon  thing  to  find  men  and  women  who  continue 
in  their  adult  years  the  childish  prayers  that  they 
learned  at  their  mother's  knee,  with  the  addition  of  such 
occasional  petitions  as  the  practical  exigencies  of  life 
may  wring  from  them. 

Many  schoolmasters  tell  us  that  boys,  even  of  the 
upper  and  middle  classes,  come  to  their  schools  at  the 
age  of  13  or  14,  and  although  they  recognise  Christmas, 
Easter,  and  Good  Friday  as  social  occasions  they  do  not 
know  why  these  days  are  kept  sacred.  It  is,  therefore, 
quite  certain  that  the  bulk  of  the  parents  of  the  nation 
have  neither  the  time  nor  the  qualifications  that  are 
necessary  for  teaching  their  children  religion.  Should 
our  hopes  of  a  regeneration  of  womanhood  become  real- 
ities, we  may  confidently  look  for  a  better  state  of  things, 

14 


The  Training  of  Women 


and  we  may  find  in  the  future  that  the  duly  instructed 
father  and  mother  will  consider  it  their  first  privilege, 
as  well  as  their  first  duty,  to  hand  on  their  faith  as  well 
as  their  life  to  the  souls  that  God  has  given  them. 

The  third  objection  urged  by  sectarian  prejudice  to 
the  teaching  of  religion  in  schools  is  surely  an  unworthy 
one.  This  is  not  the  place  in  which  it  is  fitting  that  this 
battle  should  be  fought,  but  it  ought  not  to  pass  the 
wit  of  man  to  give  effect  to  the  desires  of  the  better 
instructed  members  of  the  nation,  that  each  child  should 
be  taught  the  faith  which  its  parents  profess. 

An  instance  of  the  result  of  a  divorce  between  religion 
and  education  may  be  instructively  studied  in  the  case  of 
India,  where  our  Government,  in  its  great  desire  to  do 
justly  and  not  to  force  its  religion  upon  its  alien  sub- 
jects, has  for  many  years  given  an  education  excellent 
in  every  respect  except  in  the  inculcation  of  moral, 
ethical,  and  religious  ideas.  The  result  has  been  an- 
archy, sedition,  and  crime.  In  Eussia,  where  there  are 
more  than  30,000  women  students  in  Universities  and 
Collegiate  Schools,  the  results  are  equally  deplorable; 
the  young  women  grow  up  without  religion  and  with- 
out those  powers  of  self-control  of  which  religion  is  the 
necessary  sanction,  and  a  condition  of  society  has  been 
induced  that  is  simply  appalling  to  our  more  sober 
minds.  Such  depths  of  moral  horror  do  not  exist  in 
England,  but  we  have  not  yet  for  several  generations 
cultivated  the  intellect  and  neglected  the  spiritual  and 
moral  faculties  as  has  been  done  both  in  India  and  in 

Russia. 

15 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

Surely  woman's  work  in  aiding  the  regeneration  of 
the  race  is  urgently  needed  in  respect  to  the  education 
of  the  young. 

Every  girl  should  he  looked  upon  as  a  potential  wife 
and  mother,  even  although  it  is  clear  that  every  girl 
will  not  hecome  a  wife  and  mother;  therefore,  all  should 
have  some  training  in  house-craft.  The  difficulty  is 
that  when  girls  leave  school  it  is  in  many  cases  necessary 
for  them  to  decide  at  once  upon  some  mode  of  life  that 
will  enable  them  to  earn  their  living.  The  age  of  mar- 
riage rises  continually,  and  in  many  instances  it  is 
impossible  for  a  girl  to  remain  at  home  indefinitely, 
dependent  on  her  father.  It  is,  therefore,  advisable 
that  she  should  commence  as  early  as  possible  the  special 
training  that  will  fit  her  for  the  career  she  proposes  to 
adopt.  This  will  sometimes  mean  preparing  for  Uni- 
versity degrees,  for  some  of  the  higher  examinations  in 
training  for  the  Civil  Service,  or  for  gardening,  art, 
music,  or  for  some  of  the  many  appointments  available 
in  the  educational  world.  Such  special  preparation  will 
consume  at  the  least  three  years,  and  in  some  cases  six 
or  seven  (e.g.  in  the  preparation  for  the  medical  pro- 
fession). Therefore,  the  girl  will  not  be  ready  to  earn 
her  living  until  some  time  between  the  ages  of  20  and 
25.  It  is,  however,  very  greatly  to  be  regretted  that 
any  young  woman  should  be  unable  to  secure  so  much 
training  in  Domestic  Science  as  would  make  her  a  really 
efficient  mistress  of  a  house.  This  training  is  useful 
for  all  alike,  and  is  absolutely  necessary  for  those  women 
who  mean  to  be  really  proficient  in  the  management  of 

a  household  and  a  family. 

16 


CHAPTER  II 

woman's  influence  on  the  race 

As  a  Wife. —  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  even  among 
peoples  where  the  woman's  position  appears  to  be  en- 
tirely that  of  a  subordinate  and  inferior,  her  influence 
on  her  husband  is  enormous.  It  is  the  restraining  influ- 
ence of  the  Hindu  wife  that  compels  her  husband,  en- 
lightened probably  by  Western  education  and  even  by 
residence  in  England,  to  keep  the  laws  of  caste,  and  to 
submit  to  the  onerous  and  sometimes  irksome  duties 
imposed  on  him  by  the  Hindu  religion.  The  influence 
of  the  woman  of  the  zenana  and  the  harem,  who  has  no 
political  identity,  who  lives  unseen  and  unknown  beyond 
the  narrow  circle  of  her  home,  is  yet  sufficiently  potent 
to  keep  a  great  and  intelligent  race  bound  by  the  tram- 
mels of  caste,  and  it  is  her  influence  that  makes  the 
acceptance  of  Christianity  slow  and  difficult. 

To  a  still  greater  degree  the  influence  of  the  wife  is 
enormous  where  she  is  comparatively  emancipated,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  nations  of  Western  Europe.  The  spirit 
of  the  times  has  greatly  changed  during  the  last  200 
years,  and  whereas  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  European  women  were  regarded  by  their  hus- 
bands as  their  toys,  their  consolers,  as  delightful  beings 
with  tender  hearts,  soft  arms,  and  weak  intellects,  we 

17 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

now  find  thai  the  women  are  often  held  to  be  the  men's 
wisest  counsellors,  their  equals  in  all  but  name  and  in 
political  power.  It  is  true  that  in  some  instances  the 
twentieth-century  wife  holds  much  the  same  position  of 
inferiority  as  did  her  sister  200  years  ago,  but  in  the 
great  majority  of  these  cases  the  fault  lies  with  the 
woman  herself.  Xot  only  the  woman  who  does  not  fit 
herself  for  her  position,  in  intellectual  or  in  business 
capacities,  but  also  she  who  neglects  her  moral  and 
spiritual  training,  will  find  that  she  is  deprived  of  in- 
fluence and  has  a  difficulty  in  maintaining  her  proper 
position  just  in  proportion  to  her  deficiency.  Even  now 
there  arc,  unfortunately,  half-trained  and  silly  women 
who  look  at  everything  simply  from  the  personal  stand- 
point, and  are  incapable  of  breadth  of  view  and  of 
earnest  work;  such  women  may,  indeed,  be  the  butterfly 
companions  of  man's  sunshiny  hours,  but  they  have 
failed  to  cultivate  those  qualities  that  would  make  them, 
what  they  were  intended  to  be,  helpmeets  for  man. 

In  spite  of  all  the  serious  training  of  the  present  day, 
in  spite  of  woman's  ambition  to  excel  in  the  educational 
world,  in  medicine,  in  literature  and  in  art,  there  is 
unfortunately  a  residue  whose  ambitions  would  seem  to 
be  limited  to  the  appearance  they  will  make,  to  the  posi- 
tion they  can  take  in  society,  and  to  the  reputation  they 
may  achieve  as  conversationalists.  These  women  are 
(loins;  more  harm  io  the  race  than  do  those  who  are  more 
ignorant  so  far  as  actual  knowledge  goes,  but  who  have 
been  trained  in  the  hard  school  of  poverty,  absolute  or 
relative,  to  realise  the  gravity  of  the  issues  at  stake. 

18   ' 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


the  importance  of  feminine  duties,  and  the  fact  that  the 
nation  will  never  rise  higher  than  the  women  who  bear 
and  the  women  who  educate  its  children. 

The  duties,  characteristics,  and  perfections  of  the 
model  wife  can  hardly  be  more  worthily  and  beautifully 
expressed  than  in  the  quaint  old  chapter  in.  the  Book 
of  Proverbs,  where  we  find  described  the  virtuous  woman 
whose  price  is  far  above  rubies,  and  in  whom  the  heart 
of  her  husband  doth  so  safely  trust  that  he  has  no  need 
of  spoil.  We  find  that  this  woman  worketh  willingly 
with  her  hands,  that  she  rises  early  while  is  it  yet  night 
to  provide  meat  for  her  household.  She  is  industrious, 
spinning  and  weaving,  making  fine  linen,  and  has  the 
clear  head  and  business  capacity  to  sell  it  to  advantage. 
She  does  not  forget  the  poor,  for  she  stretcheth  out  her 
hands  to  the  poor,  yea,  she  reacheth  forth  her  hands 
to  the  needy.  This  woman,  we  learn,  is  competent  to 
manage  her  servants,  for  she  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of 
her  household,  and  considers  their  sanitary  require- 
ments, defending  them  from  the  cold  and  snow,  and 
seeing  that  they  are  clothed  with  warm  garments.  No 
wonder  it  is  said  that  strength  and  honour  are  her  cloth- 
ing, and  that  she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come.  Yes, 
such  a  woman  would  not  only  be  happy,  prosperous,  and 
respected  while  alive,  but  we  learn  that  after  death  her 
children  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed,  and  her  husband 
praiseth  her.  The  final  touch  is  given  when  we  are 
told  that  "  favour  is  deceitful  and  beauty  is  vain,  but 
a  woman  that  feareth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be  praised." 

Here,  indeed,  is  a  model  that  the  most  gifted,  the 

19 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

most  successful,  and  the  most  well-trained  woman  must 
long  to  copy;  here,  too,  is  indicated  the  sole  condition 
upon  which  such  ambition  can  be  realised.  Surely  the 
time  has  gone  by  for  our  European  women  to  content 
themselves  with  the  "  rose's  brief  bright  life  of  joy," 
with  empty  conversation  and  with  the  perils  and  unsat- 
isfying pleasures  of  a  society  life.  The  canker  of  this 
superficiality  eats  deep  into  all  ranks  of  society,  it  is 
not  confined  to  those  who  are  sometimes  called  the 
"leisured  classes,"  for  all  the  way  through,  in  profes- 
sional circles,  among  the  industrials,  right  to  the  very 
lowest,  this  curse  of  an  aimless,  gossipy,  and  superficial 
life  descends.  As  a  rule  the  blame  and  the  responsibil- 
ity for  this  utter  failure  of  women  to  realise  their 
august  destiny  and  to  fulfil  their  glorious  duties  must 
rest  on  parents,  governesses,  and  other  educationists. 
There  is  in  the  present  day  a  sad  want  of  the  apprecia- 
tion of  duty  and  of  the  necessity  for  self-discipline.  If 
we  contrast  the  nursery  of  the  present  day  with  that 
of  fifty  years  ago  we  shall  find  slackness  and  the  want 
of  rule.  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  girls  grow  up 
knowing  no  law  but  that  of  pleasure ;  the  plant  of  their 
life  may  receive  the  sun  and  rain,  but  it  knows  nothing 
of  the  pruning  knife,  and  hence  the  vigour  that  ought 
to  lead  to  flower  and  to  fruit  runs  to  waste;  there  is  a 
superabundance  of  foliage,  but  there  is  lamentably  little 
fruit. 

In  the  preparation  for  wifehood  there  is  much  to  be 
remembered.     The  man  wants  in  his  wife  someone  who 

will  be  his  devoted  and  intelligent  assistant  in  his  work 

20 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


so  far  as  is  possible ;  someone  who  will  guide  his  house- 
hold aright  and  will  stand  between  him  and  the  number- 
less troubles  and  worries  incident  to  the  daily  life  of  each 
of  us.  He  wants  someone  rich  in  sympathy,  in  patience, 
and  in  tact ;  he  does  not  want  a  slave  or  a  toy.  One  of 
the  great  charms  of  the  well-trained  wife  is  her  strong 
individuality,  her  power  of  standing  alone,  and  the 
originality  of  thought  and  resource  which  make  her  his 
true  "  helpmeet/'  his  alter  ego,  or  may  we  not  say  his 
other  and  his  better  self?  It  is  in  the  wife  that  the 
husband  should  find  the  expression  of  his  highest  ideal 
of  purity,  of  justice,  and  of  love.  It  is  to  her  that  he 
should  be  able  to  turn  for  that  idealising  help  which  he 
so  sadly  needs  in  his  daily  struggle  with  a  difficult  and, 
in  many  instances,  a  Christless  world.  A  woman's 
work  is  no  easier  than  that  of  her  husband ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  in  some  respects  more  difficult  —  it  is  a 
work  that  has  no  beginning  and  no  ending,  it  continues 
clay  in  and  dav  out,  year  after  year  —  but  in  the  ease 
of  the  woman  who  has  formed  herself  upon  the  model 
of  King  Lemuel's  ideal  there  is  an  undercurrent  of 
peace  and  calm  which  is  of  the  highest  value  for  the 
strengthening  and  sweetening  not  only  of  her  own  work, 
but  also  that  of  her  husband. 

As  a  Mother. —  If  it  is  difficult  to  sketch  the  ideal 
wife,  how  much  more  is  it  difficult  to  attempt  the 
portraiture  of  the  ideal  mother!  The  mother's  duty 
towards  the  child  is  many-sided.  The  first  and  most, 
obvious  duty  of  the  mother  to  the  infant  is  to  feed  it, 
to  clothe  it,  to  warm  it.  to  nurse  the  tiny  spark  of  life, 

21 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

to  shelter  the  feeble  flame,  to  enable  it  to  survive  the 
rough  blasts  of  untoward  circumstances  until  it  may 
become  a  powerful  and  brilliant  torch  to  shed  light  on 
the  upward  path  to  duty  and  to  honour. 

In  a  regenerated  state  of  society  it  will  be  recognised 
that  one  of  the  indefeasible  rights  of  the  infant  is  to 
have  the  nourishment  provided  for  it  by  Nature.  The 
refusal  of  many  women  to  suckle  their  infants  is 
greatly  to  be  regretted  both  from  the  irreparable  injury 
done  to  the  child  and  from  the  loss  which  accrues  to  the 
neglectful  mother,  as  loss  must  always  accrue  from  neg- 
lected duties.  Bringing  up  the  child  on  any  other  form 
of  nourishment  is  difficult  and  dangerous  enough  even 
in  the  case  of  those  mothers  who  can  command  the  very 
best  forms  of  artificial  feeding;  but  in  the  case  of  the 
poor,  who  are  dependent  on  a  defective  milk  supply  and 
who  have  neither  the  knowledge  nor  the  time  necessary 
for  the  care  and  preparation  of  artificial  food,  the  diffi- 
culty becomes  so  great  that  the  child's  chances  of  life  are 
most  seriously  handicapped.  In  Stockport,  in  1904,  95 
per  cent,  of  the  infants  who  died  of  diarrhoea  were 
bottle-fed. 

In  this  connection  we  must  remember  that  for  every 
infant  who  dies  before  the  completion  of  the  first  year 
there  are  many  others  who  become  rickety  and  stunted, 
who  acquire  such  diseases  as  tuberculosis  and  chronic 
dyspepsia,  who,  in  fact,  are  so  injured  that  they  can 
never  enjoy  life,  nor  be  anything  but  a  burden  to  them- 
selves, to  their  families,  and  to  the  nation. 

One   of   the   chief   causes   of   infantile   mortality  is 

22 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


summer  diarrhoea,  and  during  the  unusually  hot  sum- 
mer of  1911  the  infantile  mortality  for  the  County  of 
London  rose  to  the  appalling  level  of  close  on  320  per 
mille.  This  mortality  was  not  the  direct  effect  of  the 
heat  —  children  live  and  thrive  at  far  higher  tempera- 
tures, as  in  India,  where  the  thermometer  not  uncom- 
monly marks  110°  to  120°  F.  in  the  house  —  but  it  was 
directly  due  to  the  breeding  in  milk  of  those  organisms 
which  cause  diarrhoea  and  other  diseases  of  the  alimen- 
tary tract. 

The  fact  that  many  women  do  not  suckle  their  babies 
is  due  to  several  causes.  Some  women  have  no  milk, 
either  from  absolute  delicacv  of  constitution,  semi- 
starvation,  or  owing  to  their  own  fathers'  alcoholic 
habits.  Others  again  are  prevented  from  nursing  by 
the  necessity  of  going  from  the  house  to  work  —  the 
fault  in  this  case  does  not  lie  on  the  individual  woman, 
but  it  lies  on  the  nation  that  persists  in  permitting  the 
unfortunate  economic  conditions  under  which  she  lives. 
There  are  still  large  numbers  to  be  accounted  for  who 
do  not  nurse  their  children  because  they  are  too  busy 
with  social  engagements;  they  are  so  overpowered  by 
them  as  to  have  neither  time,  energy  nor  strength  for 
the  discharge  of  one  of  the  most  obvious  duties  of 
womanhood.  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  doctors 
and  nurses  are  not  free  from  blame  in  this  matter;  that 
frequently  their  counsel  has  been  to  feed  the  children 
artificially;  indeed,  for  many  years  it  was  quite  the 
fashion  to  give  this  advice.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a 
better  era  has  dawned,  and  that  Avith  a  young  Queen  on 

23 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

the  throne  who  has  always  paid  the  most  exemplary  at- 
tention to  her  nursery,  mothers  in  all  ranks  of  society 
may  recognise  the  pleasure  and  honour,  as  well  as  the 
duty,  of  themselves  feeding  the  future  citizens  of  the 
State. 

The  mother's  duty  towards  her  child  is  by  no  means 
exhausted  in  the  bestowal  on  it  of  those  maternal  cares 
which  she  shares  with  the  mothers  of  other  ranks  of 
being.  The  bird  feeds  her  young,  she  plucks  the 
feathers  from  her  own  breast  to  line  the  nest,  but  she 
also  carefully  educates  her  fledglings  in  those  arts  which 
shall  make  their  lives  secure  and  happy.  So,  too,  the 
human  mother  must  from  the  early  days  of  infancy  im- 
part to  her  little  ones  the  knowledge  that  is  necessary 
to  their  welfare  in  life.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how 
much  the  children's  future  standard  of  cleanliness,  order, 
and  cheerfulness  is  formed  during  early  nursery  days 
by  the  influence  of  the  care,  exactitude,  and  good  temper 
with  which  the  mother  surrounds  them  in  her  daily 
ministrations.  Quite  small  children  have  been  known 
actively  to  disapprove  of  any  infringement  of  the  daily 
routine  of  bath,  toilet,  and  clean  clothes.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  this  routine  and  the  almost  unconscious  in- 
fluence exerted  by  the  wise  mother  in  her  nursery  has  a 
great  share  in  laying  the  foundation  of  an  orderly  and 
well-disciplined  character.  It  is  impossible  to  exagger- 
ate the  importance  to  the  race  of  mothers  themselves 
performing  the  really  important,  although  apparently 
trivial,  duties  of  the  nursery,  nor  can  one  overstate  the 
loss  to  all  concerned  when  the  mother  refuses  or  neglects 

24 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


to  discharge  these  primary  duties.  It  is  true  that  all 
women  are  not  able  to  do  this  —  that  some,  as  stated 
above,  are  hindered  by  the  deplorable  necessity  of  being 
breadwinner  as  well  as  mother.  This  necessity  is  a 
great  blot  on  our  economic  arrangements.  But  there 
are  many  who  fail  in  their  maternal  duties  not  from 
real  necessity,  but  from  fancied  social  duties,  or  from 
having  taken  to  themselves  burdens  that  they  have  no 
right  to  bear.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  when  young 
mothers  neglect  their  own  little  children  in  order  to 
take  up  social,  philanthropic,  or  other  outside  pursuits. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  work  other  than  domestic  which 
needs  doing,  which  no  one  can  do  so  well  as  a  woman; 
but  there  are,  unfortunately,  only  too  many  childless 
wives  and  unmarried  women  to  whom  such  work  should 
naturally  and  rightly  fall,  and  who  would  find  in  it  some 
compensation  for  the  family  joys  which  have  been 
denied  to  them. 

No  woman  can  bring  to  the  task  of  nursery  educa- 
tion too  much  devotion,  skill,  and  enthusiasm.  There 
is  so  much  to  be  done  for  the  children  and  so  little  time 
in  which  to  do  it,  for  nowadays  the  little  ones,  even  of  the 
leisured  classes,  are  sent  to  school  at  a  very  tender  age, 
and  all  their  future  is  likely  to  be  sadly  marred  if  they 
have  been  deprived  of  the  nurture  and  education  to 
which  they  have  a  right  during  their  earliest  years. 

The  duty  of  a  mother  towards  her  children  becomes 

in  some  ways  more  difficult  and  more  onerous  as  time 

goes  on,  for  all  through  childhood,  youth,  and  even  in 

maturer  years  it  is  the  mother's  influence  that  is  para- 

25 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

mount  with  her  boys  and  girls,  and  it  is  she  who  ought 
to  be  at  once  their  standard  of  human  perfection  and 
the  loving  counsellor  who  is  best  able  to  teach  them 
how  to  follow  in  her  footsteps.  The  wise  mother  must 
not  only  provide  for  the  material  welfare  of  her  chil- 
dren, but  she  must  be  able  to  sympathise  with  their 
rapidly  developing  intellectual  pursuits,  and  to  aid 
them  in  their  moral  and  spiritual  difficulties.  To  do 
this  satisfactorily  the  woman  ought  to  continue  her  own 
education ;  she  should  read  carefully  selected  books,  not 
only  of  general  literature,  but  those  dealing  with  the 
subjects  that  most  interest  the  young  people;  and  fi- 
nally, if  she  would  have  an  answer  ready  to  give  them 
for  the  faith  and  hope  that  are  in  her,  she  ought  to  be 
a  careful  though  humble  student  of  theology.  Many  a 
young  soul  might  be  spared  agonies  of  doubt,  with 
much  subsequent  remorse  and  loss,  if  the  mother  were 
able  to  give  a  reasonable  answer  to  their  questionings, 
"  How  can  these  things  be  ?  " 

And,  lastly,  it  is  surely  the  mother's  duty  and  privi- 
lege to  teach  her  children  in  good  time  enough  of  the 
mystery  of  life  to  guide  their  feet  aright.  She  ought 
to  be  able  in  reverent  and  careful  language  to  explain 
to  them,  as  they  are  able  to  bear  it,  the  great  mystery 
of  the  transmission  of  life.  It  is  not  until  this  subject 
has  been  rescued  from  its  present  degraded  position,  and 
has  been  recognised  as  the  very  acme  of  human  wisdom, 
that  we  shall  have  the  "  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws," 
so  ardently  desired  by  all  great  and  good  men.  We 
have  to  learn  that  ignorance  is  not  innocence,  and  that 

26 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 

until  the  children  realise  that  their  bodies  are  the  tem- 
ples of  the  Holy  Ghost,  deserving  of  all  reverent  and 
careful  treatment,  and  to  be  kept  with  the  utmost  jeal- 
ousy from  every  contact  with  evil,  we  shall  not  attain 
to  the  level  of  purity  and  moral  dignity  that  would  be 
the  salvation  of  the  race.  Delicately  minded  men  and 
women  have  shrunk,  perhaps  naturally,  but  certainly 
disastrously,  from  this  duty,  and  the  end  of  it  has  been 
that  sexual  matters  have  been  considered  to  be  neces- 
sarily unfit  to  enter  into  the  education  of  the  young. 
We  must  learn  to  recognise  that  "unto  the  pure  all 
things  are  pure,"  and  that  the  more  these  God-ordained 
and  God-given  functions  are  raised  to  their  proper  dig- 
nity the  more  will  the  whole  nation  advance  in  moral 
worth  and  grandeur.  Love  and  marriage  have  unfor- 
tunately been  frequently  looked  on  merely  as  subjects 
of  that  foolish  jesting  which  is  not  convenient,  or  they 
have  been  so  wrapped  around,  not  by  a  veil  of  dignity 
but  by  a  shroud  of  nastiness,  that  infinite  harm  has 
accrued  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation.  We  must 
now  make  an  effort  to  restore  to  sexual  facts  the  solemn 
dignity  to  which  they  are  entitled. 

Speculations  about  these  subjects  would  appear  to  be 
more  in  the  air  now  than  at  any  previous  time  of  the 
world's  history ;  but,  alas !  even  earnest,  and  it  is  to  be 
presumed  well-intentioned,  writers  on  these  subjects  too 
often  fail  entirely  to  present  the  matter  in  its  natural 
and  proper  light  because  they  regard  it  from  the  ma- 
terialistic point  of  view.  Even  those  who  desire  the 
advance  of  the  race,  and  some  of  those  who  are  most 

27 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

earnest  in  the  propagation  of  eugenic  ideas,  appear  to 
forget,  or  to  overlook,  the  basal  fact  that  man,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  physical,  has  a  moral  and  a  spiritual  being. 
It  has  been  for  so  long  thought  unbecoming  and  un- 
womanly even  to  think  of  these  subjects  that  it  is  the 
more  necessary  to  convince  the  mothers  of  the  present 
day  that  it  is  their  bounden  duty  to  teach  their  boys 
and  girls  the  right  view — "This  do,  and  thou  shalt 
live/'  a  commandment  of  more  avail  than  all  the  "  Thou 
shalt  nots  "  of  the  Decalogue. 

It  is  the  mother  who  ought  to  be  able  to  impress  on 
the  children  and  young  people  of  the  family  the  right 
idea  of  the  nobility  of  home  and  the  dignity  of  family 
life;  she  herself  should  recognise,  and  should  teach 
them,  that  the  home  is  necessary  as  the  unit  of  civilised 
society;  she  should  impress  on  them  its  dignity,  and 
point  them  to  the  fact  that  the  father  and  mother  are 
the  earthly  representatives  of  the  Great  Creator,  they 
are  the  vicegerents  of  Him  who  created  all  the  world 
out  of  nothing,  and  who  rules  it  by  the  word  of  His 
power.  To  the  father  and  mother  He  has  confided  the 
sacred  task  of  handing  on  the  torch  of  life,  and  He  has 
left  in  their  hands  the  formation  of  the  family,  the 
prototype  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  the  family  the 
children  will  find  all  the  advantages  of  fostering  care 
and  of  the  application  of  experience :  they  will  also  find 
in  family  life  opportunities  for  the  practice  of  the  noble 
virtues  of  obedience,  dutifulness,  and  self-denial.  In 
the  family  the  children  find  the  training  school  in 
which   they   can  best  acquire  the   knowledge  and   the 

28 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


characteristics  which  will  enable  them  to  play  their  part 
well  in  this  world,  and  fit  them  for  the  life  everlasting. 
Upon  the  women  of  the  race  devolves  this  sacred  duty; 
it  is  they  who  must  purvey  to  the  young  all  things 
that  are  needful  not  only  for  their  bodies  but  for  their 
souls  and  their  spirits.  It  is  the  mother  who  should 
teach  them  where  to  look  for  sources  of  recreation  and 
of  interest;  she  should  provide  them  with  such  occupa- 
tions and  recreations  as  will  tend  to  develop  their  grow- 
ing powers,  will  attach  them  to  their  homes,  and  will 
save  them  from  the  perilous  and  meretricious  pleasures 
of  the  outer  world,  which  too  frequently  sap  the  virtue 
and  sully  the  purity  of  our  children. 

For  this  lofty  duty  all  our  women  should  be  trained ; 
because,  although,  alas !  some  women  are  never  to  be 
mothers,  yet  all  women  may  be  the  spiritual  mothers 
of  the  children  of  the  nation.  It  must  be  exceedingly 
rare  for  any  woman  to  go  through  life  without  being 
called  on  to  assist  in  the  training  of  the  young,  and 
whether  as  mother,  as  governess,  as  schoolmistress,  or  as 
nurse,  many  take  an  official  share,  and  all  have  the 
unofficial  duty  of  ministering  to  the  children.  .  There- 
fore, all  women  should  be  carefully  trained  to,  at  any 
rate,  an  understanding  of  domestic  science  and  house- 
hold economics,  while  those  who  may  be  described  as 
holding  an  official  position  must  bring  to  this  study  as 
much  intelligence  and  concentrated  attention  as  they 
cheerfully  devote  to  the  study  of  medicine,  of  art,  of 
science,  and  of  literature.     No  duty  is  more  urgent,  no 

duty  is  more  dignified  than  that  of  training  the  young ; 

29 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

and  in  order  that  the  mother  should  not  merely  be  the 
bearer,  the  stickler,  and  the  nurse  of  her  children,  that 
she  should  not  sink,  worn  out  with  the  drudgery  and 
fatigue  of  household  duties,  it  is  her  duty  to  inform 
herself  of  all  labour-saving  appliances  and  of  the  best 
and  most  scientific  methods  of  management  of  house- 
hold concerns.  Thus  she  will  save  herself  from  prema- 
ture senility  and  death.  No  woman  worn  out  and  ex- 
hausted by  ill-arranged  and  badly  organised  labour  can 
be  to  her  husband  and  her  children  all  that  she  ought 
to  be.  Many  women  who  suffer  from  "  nerves,"  from 
"brain  fag,"  from  being  too  "highly  strung,"  would 
have  escaped  these  curses  had  they  been  trained  to  do 
their  household  work  in  the  way  that  involves  least 
friction  and  least  fatigue. 

Here  is  an  almost  untrodden  field  of  research  which 
calls  aloud  for  the  best  work  and  the  highest  intelli- 
gence of  which  women  are  capable,  a  work  that  will  be 
amply  rewarded  in  the  happiness  of  their  homes,  and 
the  welfare  of  their  husbands  and  children. 

Nor  does  the  woman's  responsibility  end  here.  Upon 
her,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  depends  the  choice 
of  the  books  to  be  found  on  the  shelves  of  the  home, 
the  choice  of  the  newspapers  and  magazines  that  shall 
lie  upon  the  tables.  She  has  it  in  her  power  to  sur- 
round her  children  with  the  treasures  of  classical  liter- 
ature and  with  the  best  books  of  the  day,  but  unless 
she  herself  has  cultivated  her  intellect  and  her  critical 
faculty  how  can  she  hope  to  make  a  wise  and  a  good 
selection  ? 

30 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


In  fact,  the  mother  is  to  be  the  earthly  providence, 
taking  her  share  in  procreation,  she  alone  bearing  the 
burden  of  lactation,  and  wisely  administering  the  funds 
provided  by  the  industry  of  the  father.  She  is  also  to 
superintend  education,  to  cultivate  taste  in  art,  in  lit- 
erature, in  dress,  and  in  all  the  amenities  of  life;  and 
finally  it  is  the  mother  who  must  have  the  courage  for 
the  distasteful  but  necessary  work  of  conveying  to  her 
children  at  the  psychological  moment  the  knowledge 
that  is  to  keep  them  pure  and  undefiled  members  of 
the  body  of  Christ. 

As  a  Friend. — "  Iron  sharpeneth  iron ;  so  a  man 
sharpeneth  the  countenance  of  his  friend ; "  and  there 
are  few  of  us  who  have  reached  middle  life  who  have 
not  owed  an  incalculable  debt  of  gratitude  to  various 
friends ;  the  friends  whose  candid  criticisms  have  shown 
us  our  faults,  the  friends  whose  kindly  encouragement 
has  helped  our  weakness,  and  the  friends  whose  moral 
and  spiritual  superiority  to  ourselves  has  kindled  our 
ambition  to  resemble  them.  The  "  perfect  woman, 
nobly  planned,"  should  be  just  such  an  ideal  friend 
to  the  men  and  women  of  her  acquaintance.  She 
should  go  through  life  comforting  the  sorrowful,  help- 
ing the  weak,  inspiring  courage,  faith  and  hope.  There 
is  no  reason  why  a  woman  should  be  a  friend  to  her 
sisters  only;  she  ought  also  to  be  able  to  give  a  help- 
ing hand  to  any  "  forlorn  and  shipwrecked  brother " 
whose  barque  of  life  she  may  meet  on  the  troubled 
waters.  But  in  order  for  such  friendship  to  be  possible 
and  useful,  women   need   a  very  special   training   and 

31 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

'Tiiiiii— iiiimi      .■■imw'li    .^— J— ii  ..      ■       ii    — ■ .— ■— — ■ .         i  — ^»     i.  i^pi         -  II       II   II    L   ■■!■ 

preparation,  not  only  intellectual,  but  moral.  Women 
must  be  ready  to  take  the  troubles,  anxieties,  and  even 
the  daily  worries  of  their  own  lives  in  such  a  way  as  to 
turn  the  bitter  medicine  of  disappointment  and  anxiety 
into  the  very  elixir  of  life.  We  ought  to  realise  that 
no  life  is  necessarily  stagnant  or  wasted,  that  every 
woman  has  an  essential  part  to  play,  that  she  has  her 
number  and  her  place  in  the  great  army,  and  that  it  is 
her  own  fault,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  if  she  fails 
to  have  a  well-defined  mission  and  a  nobly  realisable 
ambition.  The  world  is  full  of  opportunities  for  serv- 
ice, and  many  are  the  pathetic  eyes  that  look  for  help, 
many  the  helpless  hands  stretched  out  to  those  who 
know  how  to  answer  their  pleading. 

As  an  Employer. —  It  is  no  new  thing  for  women  to 
hold  the  position  of  employer,  for  in  many  lands  and 
in  many  generations  we  find  women  acting  as  great  land- 
owners, as  capable  managers  of  farms,  as  heads  of  shops 
and  other  industries,  while  in  the  scholastic  world  ladies 
who  own  and  manage  large  schools  and  other  such  in- 
stitutions have  long  been  amongst  the  employers  of 
labour.  It  is  also  well  known  that  when  a  woman  takes 
up  this  position  she  generally  does  her  work  as  satis- 
factorily as  does  a  man.  The  danger  would  rather  seem 
to  be  that  women  employers  have  tended  to  be  somewhat 
hard  and  exacting  in  the  demands  that  they  make  upon 
their  workers.  They  are  very  frequently  themselves 
women  of  considerable  strength,  both  of  body  and  mind, 
and  recognising  that  they,  like  most  of  their  employees, 

are  women,  they  are  apt  to  judge  them  by  their  own 

32 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


standard,  and  to  think  that  all  around  them  are  their 
equals  in  strength  and  endurance.  A  decent  man  em- 
ploying women  would  be  more  likely  to  have  mercy  and 
consideration  for  what  he  half  contemptuously  calls 
"  the  weaker  sex,"  but  the  femme  maitresse  does  not 
acknowledge  this  appeal  to  her  mercy  —  if  she  can 
work  and  suffer  no  hurt,  so,  she  thinks,  can  other 
women. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  most  women  bring  to  the  work 
of  life  a  conscientiousness,  faithfulness,  and  attention 
to  detail  that  men  may  rival  but  cannot  excel.  One  has 
heard  the  doubt  expressed  whether  women  can  also 
bring  absolute  accuracy  of  detail  to  their  important 
work ;  it  has  been  suggested  that  here,  at  least,  the  gen- 
erations of  trained  men  have  been  able  to  impart  a  her- 
itage of  accuracy  and  honesty  in  detail  to  their  sons  but 
not  to  their  daughters.  Surely  here  the  theory  of 
heredity  is  going  wrong:  the  daughters  clearly  inherit 
family  traits  —  for  instance,  stature,  complexion,  and 
even  little  peculiarities  and  tricks  of  speech  and  gesture ; 
it  is  well  known  that  the  girls  of  a  family  frequently 
take  after  the  father,  while  the  boys  more  nearly  re- 
semble the  mother  and  her  family;  therefore,  it  seems 
improbable  that  an  accurate,  painstaking  man  should 
not  bequeath  these  qualities,  together  with  others,  to 
sons  and  daughters  indifferently.  The  old  question  of 
relative  superiority  and  relative  inferiority  between  the 
sexes  must  be  put  aside,  and  we  must  recognise  that 
some  men  are  wiser  and  more  intellectual  than  some 
women,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  are  not  want- 

33 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

inn     ■  -.—     ■■«wmiii.i  i  ii  i    ii  mi   ■■  j.H—        ii    ii -111  ..ii  1. 1         ■■■ii- — — ^^— — — ■        i  umim 

ing  women  who  are  the  intellectual  and  moral  superiors 
of  some  of  their  brethren. 

The  woman  employer  of  labour  ought  to  be  a  diligent 
student  of  social  economics;  she  ought  to  know  some- 
thing about  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  and  of  the 
laws  that  regulate  the  relation  between  employer  and 
worker ;  but  she  ought  also  to  be  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  the  higher  law,  and  carry  in  her  heart  the  intention 
of  doing  unto  others  as  she  would  like  them  to  do  unto 
her.  The  pretty  parable  in  the  "  Water  Babies "  of 
Mrs.  Be-Done-by-as-you-did  and  Mrs.  Be-Done-by-as- 
you-would  might  well  be  studied  by  the  woman  employer 
of  labour.  If  the  spirit  of  that  parable,  and  still  more 
the  spirit  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  fully  enters  into 
her  life  there  can  be  no  place  for  grinding  exactions,  nor 
for  the  neglect  to  provide  the  conditions  that  are  neces- 
sary for  the  best  development  of  the  talents  and  work 
of  other  women. 

After  all,  the  chief  sphere  in  which  woman  is  an  em- 
ployer of  labour  is  the  domestic  sphere,  and  which  of 
us  women  can  say  that  we  have  a  conscience  void  of 
offence  in  this  matter  ?  Do  we  not  exact  too  long  hours 
of  work  ?  Are  we  not  careless  as  to  the  ventilation,  the 
admission  of  air  and  light  to  servants'  apartments,  and 
do  we  not  too  often  crowd  several  of  them  into  one  bed- 
room so  that  the  truly  feminine  virtues  of  modesty  and 
propriety  can  scarcely  flourish?  In  some  households 
the  case  of  the  domestic  servant  is  even  worse  than  this, 
for  she  is  sent  out  to  fetch  the  beer,  and  is  allowed  to 

be  out  late  at  night,  some  mistresses  openly  saying  that 

34 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


they  care  nothing  for  what  their  servants  do,  nor  how 
they  spend  their  leisure,  provided  that  their  work  is  well 
done.  A  more  Christian  and  juster  view  of  the  matter 
would  be  taken  if  each  mistress  remembered  that  she 
stands  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  position  of  mother  to 
those  whom  she  employs ;  that  she  is  bound  to  give  them 
not  only  board,  lodging,  and  wages,  but  that  equally  she 
is  bound  to  give  them  moral  support,  to  see  that  they 
have  time  for  reasonable  recreation,  for  religious  and 
for  family  duties.  The  horror  expressed  by  some  mis- 
tresses when  a  servant  girl  misbehaves  herself  is  very 
genuine,  but  it  is  neither  just  nor  reasonable,  for  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  the  girl's  virtue  has  been  too 
severely  tried,  she  having  on  the  one  hand  no  home,  no 
counsellor,  and  possibly  no  religion,  and  on  the  other  the 
strong  temptations  natural  to  her  age  and  condition  of 
life. 

As  Workers. —  Like  women  employers,  the  women 
workers  have  their  strong  points.  They,  too,  are  gen- 
erally conscientious  and  painstaking,  but  much  of  their 
efficiency  depends  on  whether  they  are  trained  or  un- 
trained. 

Training  not  only  connotes  the  acquirement  of  special 
knowledge  and  the  development  of  special  aptitudes,  but 
it  also  generally  implies  the  possession  of  those  moral 
characteristics  which  are  essential  to  efficiency  and  to 
success.  The  process  of  training  strengthens  the  good 
and  represses  the  bad  elements  of  character ;  it  develops 
patience,  accuracy,  and  habits  of  obedience  and  dutiful - 
ness.     The  work  of  many  trained  women  workers  may 

35 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

be  compared  with  that  of  men,  with  no  fear  of  dispar- 
agement. The  case  of  the  untrained  worker,  whether 
as  domestic  servant  or  as  one  of  the  army  of  casual 
workers,  is  widely  different.  The  untrained  woman 
worker  knows  nothing  well,  and  does  nothing  well ;  her 
work  is  never  reliable,  and,  if  well  done  to-day,  will 
surely  be  defective  to-morrow.  These  untrained  women 
are  the  despair  of  their  employers.  They  are  by  no 
means  deliberately  bad  or  untrue,  but,  having  never 
learnt  their  work  and  never  having  passed  through  the 
mill  of  discipline,  the}'  are  unreliable  and  unsatisfac- 
tory. Until  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  the  majority 
of  women  workers  were  untrained.  They  were  brought 
up  to  do  nothing  and  without  any  definite  prospects  of 
life.  Most  of  them  expected  to  live  at  home  until  they 
married,  and  the  death  of  the  father,  or  brother,  on 
whom  they  were  dependent,  was  the  occasion  for  them 
to  turn  out  into  the  world,  quite  unfit  for  its  battle  and 
unable  to  earn  a  sufficient  livelihood.  If  the  would-be 
worker  was  gently  born  the  one  available  career  was 
that  of  governess,  a  position  for  which  she  was  fitted 
by  her  good  breeding  and  manners,  but  for  which  her 
scrappy  and  ill-directed  education  gave  her  no  other 
qualification.  Things  have  greatly  improved,  and  at 
the  present  time  a  large  proportion  of  the  daughters  of 
professional  and  service  men  can  and  do  receive  some 
training. 

There  is  still  room  for  improvement,  and  a  need  that 
women  who  have  no  gifts  or  vocation  for  professions,  for 

clerkships,  or  gardening,  should  be  properly  trained  for 

36 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


such  employments  as  housekeepers,  matrons  of  schools 
and  institutions,  and  as  confidential  servants. 

It  is  time  that  we  should  recognise  that  all  women 
ought  to  be  trained  —  partly  that  they  should  cease  to 
be  parasites,  and  partly  for  the  joy  and  happiness  that 
flow  from  a  sense  of  the  power  to  earn  one's  living.  In 
many  instances  the  special  training  would  never  be 
needed  owing  to  early  marriage,  but  in  no  case  would 
the  discipline  and  the  development  of  character  be 
thrown  away.  Xot  only  will  a  trained  woman  always 
possess  the  means  of  independence,  but  she  will  also 
carry  into  any  position  in  life  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual advantages  gained  by  training. 

Some  parents  object  to  their  daughters  receiving  a 
special  training,  thinking  it  unnecessary,  as  they  intend 
to  provide  for  their  future,  but  such  parents  do  not 
realise  the  uncertainty  of  riches,  nor  do  they  consider 
the  enormous  gain  to  their  daughters'  characters  offered 
by  the  discipline  involved  in  training. 

Another  argument  sometimes  advanced  is  that  girls 
whose  fathers  can  provide  for  them  ought  not  to  work 
and  deprive  less  fortunate  women  of  the  pay  they  really 
need.  The  answer  is  that  there  are  plenty  of  trainings 
which  need  not  necessarily  lead  to  paid  work,  but  which 
would  fit  the  girls  for  missionary  work  at  home  or 
abroad,  for  scientific  research,  and  for  numberless  social 
enterprises  which  are  languishing  because  there  is  no 
money  to  attract  paid  workers. 

As  Philnrilliropists. —  Here  is  a  wide  and  fruitful 
field  for  woman's   energies,  and   an  abundant  harvest 

37 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

awaits  her  toil.  The  day  may  come,  nay,  the  day  will 
come,  when  all  the  race  shall  consciously  obey  the  Divine 
Will,  all  shall  carry  out  the  intentions  of  Providence, 
and  in  so  doing  shall  be  blessed  with  health,  and  witli 
all  that  is  necessary  for  abundant  and  for  happy  life. 
That  day  is  still  far  away,  and  the  demand  for  philan- 
thropic work  is  great  and  urgent.  There  are  the  sick  to 
be  doctored  and  nursed,  the  young  to  be  nurtured  and 
educated,  the  ignorant  and  debashed  to  be  instructed 
and  raised : 

"  See  the  ripening  harvest  languish, 
Waiting  still  the  labourer's  toil." 

The  prisoner  waits  to  be  reformed  and  comforted,  the 
lost  and  the  fallen  to  be  purified  and  reclaimed,  while 
in  addition  to  all  that  needs  doing  at  home  there  is  the 
limitless  field  of  foreign  missions  crying  aloud  for  the 
doctor,  the  educationalist,  and  the  evangelist.  The 
need  of  the  world  is  so  great,  its  miseries  are  so  pathetic, 
and  the  number  of  those  who  are  able  and  willing  to 
minister  to  its  needs  is  so  small,  that  there  is  a  real 
danger  of  the  overpressed  workers  giving  way  to  de- 
spair and  to  a  sense  that  their  efforts  are  so  feeble  and 
make  so  small  an  impression  on  the  mass  of  misery  that 
they  might  as  well  give  them  up. 

Women  are  peculiarly  well  fitted  for  these  endeavours 
—  endued  with  clear  brains,  skilful  hands,  and  loving 
hearts,  they  only  need  training  to  fit  them  for  successful 
endeavours  to  help  the  human  race  to  better  and  to  hap- 
pier conditions  of  life.     The  work  that  needs  doing  is 

38 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


infinitely  varied,  and  suitable  employment  awaits  each 
honest  and  earnest  worker. 

It  is  impossible  in  the  narrow  limits  of  the  present 
pamphlet  to  enumerate  all  the  ways  in  which  women 
can  and  do  devote  themselves  to  the  paid  or  unpaid 
service  of  their  less  fortunate  fellow-creatures.  Among 
the  most  obvious  are  the  labours  of  the  parochial  worker, 
labours  that  are  all  the  more  to  be  respected  because  they 
come  so  little  into  the  sunshine,  and  confer  so  little 
extra  dignity  and  consideration  on  the  devoted  women 
who  give  the  best  part  of  their  lives  to  these  duties. 
The  work  is  not  only  frequently  unthanked,  but  it  is 
done  against  the  wish  and  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
of  the  very  people  whom  it  is  sought  to  benefit.  All  the 
same,  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  and  there  are  few 
large  parishes  with  a  small  staff  of  greatly  overworked 
clergy  that  could  be  kept  together  were  it  not  for  the 
women  who  give  up  the  best  part  of  their  lives  to  this 
service.  In  close  connection  with  this  must  be  reckoned 
the  work  that  is  done  by  women  in  Sunday  Schools,  on 
School  Committees,  on  Children's  Care  Committees,  and 
as  unpaid  workers  in  such  enterprises  as  the  Children's 
Country  Holiday  Fund,  Infant  Consultations,  and 
Schools  for  Mothers.  Some  of  these  undertakings  date 
from  far  back,  while  others  are  quite  of  the  present  day, 
and  there  are  few  more  calculated  to  help  in  the  regen- 
eration of  society  than  those  last  named,  viz.,  the  Infant 
Consultations  and  the  Schools  for  Mothers.  Here  all 
the  training  and  education  that  a  woman  possesses  may 
be  turned  to  good  account ;  all  that  fits  her  to  be  a 

39 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

mother  herself,  and  that  has  made  her  expert  in  the 
management  of  her  own  household  and  her  own  chil- 
dren, will  he  of  the  greatest  service  to  her  when  she  en- 
deavours to  help  the  expectant  mothers  and  the  mothers 
with  their  infants  who  attend  these  schools.  The 
enormous  reduction  of  infantile  mortality  within  the 
last  six  or  seven  years  is  due  in  great  part  to  these  and 
other  kindred  institutions;  in  them  we  often  find  doc- 
tors (men  and  women),  nurses,  and  ladies  of  leisure 
as  assistants. 

Another  branch  of  philanthropic  work  which  needs  a 
very  special  training  as  well  as  an  unusual  order  of 
mind,  together  with  much  spiritual  insight,  is  the  Res- 
cue and  Preventive  work  which  ought  to  exist  in  every 
diocese  and  throughout  every  area  of  our  large  towns.  It 
is  by  no  means  easy  to  find  women  who  are  fitted  by 
age,  by  temperament,  and  by  experience  to  be  really 
good  and  acceptable  workers  in  this  field.  It  needs  a 
very  peculiar  combination  of  the  deepest  love  and  ready 
sympathy,  with  not  only  a  clear  head  but  also  great 
moral  strength,  for  in  man}r  instances  the  poor  girls 
whose  redemption  is  the  object  of  these  societies  are  so 
morally  and  spiritually  stunted  and  deformed  that  they 
respond  with  extreme  slowness,  and  indeed  are  often 
wilful  and  tiresome  beyond  the  powers  of  endurance  of 
ordinary  people.  Really  good  rescue  and  preventive 
workers  need  to  be  a  Compound  of  angel  and  of  states- 
man, sufficiently  rare.  In  addition  to  this  they  need  an 
unusually  vigorous  physique  and  great  powers  of  bodily 
endurance. 

40 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


The  workhouse  affords  another  field  for  the  efforts  of 
women  towards  the  regeneration  of  the  race.  Here 
they  come  in  contact  with  evil  in  one  of  its  most  pro- 
nounced forms.  A  large  proportion  of  the  younger 
women  in  workhouses  are  those  who  have  fallen  into 
sin  and  misery.  These  unfortunate  young  women  have 
found  their  only  possible  refuge  in  the  workhouse  in- 
firmary, and  the  short  time  that  they  pass  there  is  just 
the  one  brief  interval  in  which  it  may  be  possible  to 
influence  them  for  their  good.  Too  frequently  this 
short  available  time  was  allowed  to  pass  by  unimproved, 
but  latterly  in  many  workhouses  there  has  been  an  hon- 
est endeavour  to  make  some  provision  for  the  unfortu- 
nate young  ^mothers  and  their  infants.  It  has  been 
proved  that  the  reclamation  of  the  girl-mothers  depends 
in  a  great  measure  on  the  kindling  within  them  of  the 
unselfish  motive  for  reform  afforded  by  motherly  love. 
The  worst  treatment,  and  that  most  likely  to  end  in  the 
return  of  the  girls  to  their  life  of  sin,  has  been  the 
quenching  in  them  of  this  natural  but  saving  grace. 
The  loving  desire  to  benefit  these  girls,  which  is  felt  by 
many  more  happily  circumstanced  women,  could  find 
no  more  blessed  goal  than  that  of  providing  them  with 
a  home  and  maintenance  for  some  months  so  as  to  per- 
mit of  their  fulfilling  the  sacred  duty  of  suckling  their 
infants.  Thus  infant  lives  may  be  saved  and  the 
mothers  reclaimed. 

Another  branch  of  workhouse  management  which  falls 
very  naturally  to  the  province  of  women  workers  is  that 
of  the  care  of  the  children.     Opinions  differ  greatly  as 

41 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

to  the  best  method  of  dealing  with  them,  but  there  can- 
not be  two  opinions  as  to  the  great  desirability  of  the 
enlistment  of  women  in  this  work,  which  so  pre-emi- 
nently needs  their  fostering  care. 

Women  are  to  be  found  amongst  the  visitors  of  pris- 
ons, and  they  are  greatly  interested  in  the  comparatively 
new  movement  for  penal  reform.  The  care  of  the  crim- 
inal and  the  endeavour  to  make  the  period  of  imprison- 
ment the  opportunity  for  reform  is  very  specially 
women's  work.  The  old  idea  of  a  term  of  imprisonment 
was  that  it  was  a  just  punishment  meted  out  to  the 
offender  by  an  injured  and  outraged  society.  Slowly 
but  surely  the  idea  is  gaining  ground  that  the  term  of 
imprisonment  ought  to  be  far  more  than  this;  that  al- 
though there  must  be  punishment,  that  element  is  se- 
cured by  the  loss  of  liberty,  and  every  endeavour  should 
be  made  to  assist  the  prisoners  to  understand  the  nature 
of  the  offence  committed,  to  excite  an  honest  sorrow 
for  having  committed  the  offence,  to  lead  to  the  de- 
sire for  a  better  life,  and  finally  to  help  them  to  be  ready 
for  this  better  life.  Unless  prisoners  on  discharge  are 
placed  in  such  a  position  that  honesty  and  right  dealing 
are  possible,  and  unless  the  lessons  learned  in  the  prison 
have  borne  good  fruit  in  improved  moral  and  spiritual 
health,  the  time  spent  within  its  walls  has  been  little 
better  than  wasted.  Here  the  influence  of  good  and 
wise  women  is  of  great  value,  and  this  is  one  of  the 
many  ways  in  which  they  can  hope  to  take  their  fair 
share  in  the  regeneration  of  society. 

The  formation  of  Women's   Settlements  is   quite  a 

42 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


modern  idea;  they  are,  perhaps,  more  akin  to  the  con- 
ventual life  than  to  anything  else,  for,  although  the 
workers  take  no  vows,  they  live  in  community,  and  for 
the  time  being,  at  least,  give  themselves  up  entirely  to 
the  task  of  improving  the  physical,  social,  moral  and 
spiritual  life  of  those  around  them.  Settlement  life  is 
indeed  twice  blessed.  It  blesses  those  devoted  women 
who  give  up  their  home  life  and  social  pleasures  for 
arduous  toil,  and  whose  payment  too  frequently  consists 
in  disappointment ;  and  also  the  existence  of  the  Settle- 
ment in  any  neighbourhood  is  a  very  distinct  advantage 
and  help  to  all  around.  The  work  done  by  the  Settle- 
ment workers  is  multifarious :  they  have  a  share  in  the 
philanthropic  enterprises  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  the 
fact  of  their  own  womanhood  often  procures  them  an 
entrance  into  houses  which  are  inaccessible  even  to  the 
clergy.  To  be  a  good  Settlement  officer  needs  as  dis- 
tinguished endowments  as  to  be  a  rescue  and  preventive 
worker.  Unselfishness,  loving-kindness,  and  an  ardent 
zeal  to  help  other  people  would  not  in  any  way  suffice 
to  make  a  successful  Settlement  worker ;  there  must  be 
the  other  side  to  the  character  —  the  clear  head,  the 
savoir  faire,  and  the  moral  strength  must  be  there.  If 
these  be  wanting,  the  officer  will  be  constantly  exploited, 
and  her  very  kindness  will  tend  to  injure  the  people 
among  whom  she  works. 

Nursing  and  doctoring  must  also  be  mentioned  among 
the  works  gladly  undertaken  by  those  who  are  qualified 
for  them.  Some  of  the  best  and  ablest  of  women  doc- 
tors are  to  be  found  working  amongst  the  poor ;  not  only 

43 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

those  women  who  work  as  officers  of  hospitals  —  who, 
indeed,  may  find  some  earthly  recompense  for  their 
labours  in  the  experience  that  they  gain  and  the  respect 
that  they  command  —  but  there  are  many  others,  work- 
ing, unknown  and  unappreciated,  in  the  slums  and  al- 
leys of  great  towns,  sometimes  entirely  without  remu- 
neration, and  sometimes  earning  with  difficulty  the 
utterly  inadequate  payment  which  is  all  their  patients 
can  afford. 

All  honour  to  these  brave  workers,  whether  they  be 
nurses  or  doctors,  and  whether  they  be  working  in  the 
countryside  or  in  the  poor  districts  of  large  towns. 
They  have  ready  to  their  hand  untold  opportunities  of 
raising  and  bettering  the  race.  It  is  to  them  more  than 
to  anyone  else  that  the  poorer  and  more  ignorant  women 
will  listen ;  the  women  doctors  have  it  in  their  power  to 
teach  them,  and  they  do  teach  them,  the  evils  of  drink, 
the  blessings  of  cleanliness,  of  fresh  air,  and  of  pure  wa- 
ter. It  is  from  these  women  doctors  and  nurses  that 
many  young  wives  learn  the  necessary  care  of  their  own 
health  in  prospect  of  maternity,  the  duty  of  suckling 
their  infants,  and  the  best  methods  of  securing  the  health 
of  their  children.  Advice  is  never  so  well  received,  and 
the  truths  of  science  are  never  so  likely  to  be  accepted, 
as  when  they  are  pressed  upon  the  attention  in  times 
of  difficulty,  of  sickness,  and  of  anxiety.  It  is  when 
the  woman  is  ill  herself,  or  when  her  child  is  in  danger 
from  improper  feeding,  or  from  ignorant  exposure  to  in- 
fection, that  she  is  most  likely  to  understand  and  to 

profit  by  loving  but  truthful  remonstrance  and  advice. 

44 


Woman's  Influence  on  the  Race 


The  responsibility  resting  on  all  women  workers  is  pe- 
culiarly great  in  the  case  of  doctors  and  nurses  because 
of  their  unusual  privileges  and  advantages  in  being  able 
to  command  a  sympathetic  reception  to  their  message. 


45 


CHAPTER  III 

WOMEN    AS    CITIZENS 

Under  this  head  one  would  like  to  sum  up  the  influence 
of  women  in  the  various  relations  of  life  —  those  of 
wife,  mother,  friend,  employer,  worker,  and  philanthro- 
pist —  and  to  consider  all  these  in  the  light  of  the  duty 
that  every  citizen  owes  to  his  fellow-citizens,  and  to  that 
personification  of  them  which  we  call  the  nation. 

Women's  position  as  citizens  received  extremely  little 
attention  fifty  years  ago,  and  even  now  it  is  far  from 
satisfactory.  Things  have  advanced  marvellously,  and 
the  women  of  to-day  are  better  educated,  better  trained, 
and  more  respected  than  were  those  of  the  mid- Victorian 
days.  Still,  there  are  certain  difficulties,  many  inequali- 
ties of  the  law,  and  a  general  insecurity  of  position. 
Even  in  those  cases  where  theoretically  equality  has 
been  attained,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  position  of  medi- 
cal women,  old  prejudices  die  hard,  and  although  women 
are  admitted  on  equal  terms  with  men  to  all  the  degrees 
and  honours  of  many  Universities,  and  although  the 
two  Royal  Colleges  have  at  last  opened  their  doors,  yet 
in  practice  there  is  a  tendency  among  some  of  their 
brethren  to  treat  them  as  outsiders,  and  to  forget  their 
claims  to  a  fair  share  of  representation  in  learned  so- 
cieties, and  in  what  may  be  called  the  politics  of  medi- 

46 


Women  as  Citizens 


cine.  It  is  quite  true  that  individual  members  have 
little  to  complain  of,  that  they  are  met  in  consultation 
and  on  committees  not  only  with  courtesy  but  with  re- 
spect; but  yet,  as  a  class,  women  have  not  achieved  the 
position  accorded  to  them  as  individuals. 

Now,  exactly  what  happens  to  women  in  medicine  is 
what  happens  to  them  in  most  of  the  other  spheres  of 
citizen  life.  Yet  until  those  women  who  are  fit  to  take 
a  share  in  public  life,  and  who  are  anxious  to  do  what 
in  them  lies  for  the  regeneration  and  advancement  of  the 
race,  are  put  into  a  position  of  equality  with  their  breth- 
ren, the  nation  is  really  losing  a  large  portion  of  its 
working  power.  There  are  many  women  to  whom  cir- 
cumstances have  denied  the  natural  joys  and  duties  of 
wifehood  and  motherhood ;  many  of  them  have  no  well- 
defined  and  dominant  duties  in  their  homes,  and, 
truth  to  tell,  many  of  their  homes  would  be  far  happier 
if  their  abundant  energies  found  an  outlet  elsewhere. 
These  women  are  extremely  useful  in  all  the  varied  em- 
ployments I  have  considered  and  in  many  others  also, 
but  their  usefulness  is,  to  a  great  extent,  marred  by  their 
inability  to  take  a  share  in  ameliorating  many  condi- 
tions that  they  recognise  and  deplore.  The  tide  of 
women's  usefulness,  of  their  independence,  and  of  their 
adequate  training  for  the  work  of  life  has  risen  enor- 
mously and  is  still  rising.  No  doubt  "  everything 
comes  to  those  who  know  how  to  wait,"  and  there  is  a 
reasonable  hope  that  with  patience  and  a  little  more 
quiet  perseverance  everything  that  is  necessary  to  enable 
a  woman  to  do  her  full  share  of  work  as  a  good  citizen 

47 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

will  be  an  accomplished  fact.  Meantime,  the  women 
who  love  their  country  and  who  desire  that  the  next 
generation  shall  be  better,  healthier,  and  wiser  than  the 
\i resent,  have  much  to  do,  and  a  very  fair  share  of  the 
ability  to  do  it.  The  position  is,  in  many  respects,  dif- 
ficult and  needs  patience  as  well  as  courage,  but  this  we 
have  always  understood  women  were  born  to  have  —  in- 
finite patience  and  great  powers  of  endurance  are  sup- 
posed to  be  a  portion  of  their  immemorial  outfit  — 
therefore,  while  waiting  for  the  flood  tide  they  must 
neither  be  impatient  of,  nor  scorn  to,  that  portion 
of  power  which  they  have  already  secured. 

The  endowments  of  men  and  women,  moral  and  in- 
tellectual, as  well  as  physical,  are  to  a  very  large  extent 
similar,  and  with  the  exception  of  their  absolute  sexual 
characteristics  there  is  more  similarity  between  the  male 
and  female  of  the  same  race  than  there  is  between  the 
males  or  females  of  alien  races.  That  is  to  say,  there 
is  more  similarity  of  physical  characteristics  and  of 
mental  and  moral  endowments  between  an  Englishman 
and  an  Englishwoman  of  the  same  stage  of  development 
than  there  is  between  an  educated  Englishman  and  a 
Bantu  or  Hottentot  man.  There  is,  however,  a  certain 
narrow  but  well-defined  margin,  physical,  moral  and  in- 
tellectual, in  which  the  sexes  are  absolutely  and  entirely 
distinct. 

Prof.  Gulick  said  at  the  School  Hygiene  Congress  of 
1907,  that  although  he  and  his  wife  had  promised  each 
other  and  had  fully  intended  not  only  that  they  would 

work  side  by  side  but  also  that  they  would  share  each 

48 


Women  as  Citizens 


other's  emotions  in  joy  and  in  sorrow  in  their  married 
life  and  in  their  parenthood,  yet  they  found  this  was 
impossible.     Prof.  Gulick  amused  the  Congress  by  tell- 
ing them  how,  when  his  first-born  was  put  into  his  arms, 
he  sat  down  with  it  and  did  his  best  to  imitate  his  wife's 
gestures  and  to  realise  the  full  flood  of  maternal  tender- 
ness towards  the  helpless  babe.     He  felt,  indeed,  a  cer- 
tain parental  joy  and  pride,  but  his  honesty  compelled 
him  to  admit  that  his  wife's  feelings  and  behaviour  to- 
ward the  infant  were  totally  different  from  his  own. 
Not  only  was  she  capable  of  feeding  it,  but  she  evidently 
had  what  he  called  "  a  solid  joy  and  satisfaction  "  from 
the  contemplation  of  the  little  morsel,  which  he  tried 
in  vain  to  experience.     And  so  it  is  with  all  of  us.     The 
mother's  feeling  towards  her  child  —  bone  of  her  bone 
and  flesh  of  her  flesh,  the  creature  that  she  has  borne 
in  anguish  and  nursed  with  devotion  —  is  that  it  is 
necessarily  a  more  integral  part  of  herself,  a  more  potent 
factor  in  her  life,  than  it  can  be  in  the  father's.     A 
father's  relation  to  the  child  is  altogether  different  and 
less  intimate.     The  father's  relation  to  the  home  is  also 
on  a  totally  different  footing;  he  values  it,  he  respects 
it,  he  toils  for  it.     In  most  ranks  of  life  the  husband 
and  father  is  still  the  breadwinner,  and  it  is  from  his 
exertions,  physical  or  mental,  that  the  means  are  ob- 
tained for  feeding  and  for  clothing  wife  and  children, 
but,  after  all,  his  interests  are  largely  outside  the  home, 
and  the  very  work  that  he  does  to  maintain  it  proves  a 
potent  distraction  from   domestic  cares  and  interests. 
It  is  well  that  it  is  so,  for  the  man's  business  capacity 

49 


Womanhood  and  Pace-Regeneration 


and  his  power  to  fulfil  his  daily  duty  would  be  very  seri- 
ously handicapped  if  he  took  the  same  kind  of  interest 
in  domestic  concerns  as  is  natural  to  his  wife.  The 
home  and  the  family  may  he  indeed  his  inspiration,  but 
they  are  not  his  very  life ;  therefore,  the  interests  of  the 
home  and  children  which  concern  the  wife  so  much 
more  nearly  are,  if  she  be  a  normal  and  well-instructed 
woman,  more  easily  understood  by  her. 

The  woman  who  bears  the  never-ceasing  anxiety  and 
cares  of  the  household,  the  woman  who  not  only  brings 
the  children  into  the  world,  who  not  only  feeds  them 
from  her  breast,  and  clothes  and  watches  over  them  in 
sickness  and  in  health,  but  to  whom  all  the  troubles  and 
sorrows  incident  to  infancy  and  childhood  make  the 
strongest  appeal,  ought  to  be  the  one  who  best  under- 
stands the  needs  of  a  family  and  the  social  and  economic 
arrangements  that  are  necessary  to  its  welfare.  A 
woman  ought  to  do  her  best  by  wise  and  suitable  educa- 
tion and  training  not  only  to  qualify  herself  for  the  dis- 
charge of  the  daily  and  ordinary  duties  of  housewife  and 
of  mother,  but  also  carefully  to  inform  herself  of  the 
laws  which  regulate  her  life,  of  the  legal  position  in 
which  she  stands;  and  unfortunately,  when  she  begins 
to  inquire  into  these  subjects,  she  cannot  but  perceive 
that  the  laws  are  unequal  and  that  she  is  much  less  free 
than  she  imagines  herself  to  be.  The  woman  will  find 
that  not  only  society,  but  the  law  itself,  takes  a  different 
view  of  what  is  right  for  her  and  what  is  right  for  her 
husband.     She  will  find  that  one  act  of  misconduct  on 

her  part  suffices  to  deprive  her  of  her  privileges  and  po- 

50 


Women  as  Citizens 


sition  as  wife,  and  that  the  law  in  separating  her  from 
her  husband  at  his  request  will  give  into  his  keeping  the 
children  of  the  marriage,  all  but  the  infant  at  the  breast. 
At  the  same  time  she  learns  that  unfaithfulness  on  the 
part  of  her  husband  is  no  cause  for  divorce  unless  cruelty 
be  added  to  it. 

Another  instance  of  inequality  between  the  sexes,  not 
enforced  by  law  but  sanctioned  by  long  usage,  is  the  in- 
equality of  wages.  This  is  seen  in  the  Education  De- 
partment, in  the  Civil  Service,  and  amongst  clerks,  right 
down  through  all  the  ranks  of  industrials  —  we  find  that 
where  men  and  women  do  identically  the  same  work  the 
women  are  expected  to  do  it  for  less  pay.  No  doubt  so 
long  as  women  are  willing  to  work  for  less  remuneration 
they  will  be  exploited,  but  this  is  only  another  instance 
to  prove  how  necessary  it  is  that  women  should  inform 
themselves  of  the  conditions  under  which  they  work, 
and  that  like  the  men  they  should  so  organise  their  la- 
bour that  they  may  obtain  the  same  remuneration  for  the 
same  labour. 

In  bygone  days  man's  superior  size  and  muscular  en- 
dowments made  him  in  many  respects  a  more  valuable 
animal  than  woman.  In  hunting,  in  fighting,  and  in 
all  the  hard  and  rough  work  that  had  to  be  done  in  un- 
civilised and  semi-civilised  ages,  the  man's  strength  was 
at  a  premium.  This  in  a  great  majority  of  occupations 
is  no  longer  the  case,  for  the  labour-saving  appliances 
and  delicate  machinery  which  now  largely  replace 
manual  labour  can  be  as  well  controlled  by  women  as 
by  men,  nay,  in  some  instances  the  superior  delicacy  and 

51 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

fineness  of  touch  characteristic  of  the  female  places  her 
work  in  a  position  of  advantage.  The  value  of  woman 
as  a  citizen  largely  depends  upon  her  knowing  these 
things,  and  upon  her  making  a  right  use  of  her  knowl- 
edge. It  was  never  intended  that  men  and  women 
should  act  in  opposition  to  each  other ;  they  are  two 
halves  of  one  whole,  "  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh," 
and  it  is  only  as  the  woman  realises  her  equality  with 
man  that  she  can  become  her  best  self  and  develop  to 
the  utmost  her  powers  of  regenerating  and  raising  the 
race.  There  would  surely  be  far  less  frivolity  if  women 
realised  their  true  position  and  their  privileges ;  if  they 
were  able  to  understand  and  to  claim  their  exalted  des- 
tiny in  being  the  mothers  and  guardians  of  the  race, 
surely  they  would  rise  to  a  higher  sense  of  responsibility 
and  of  duty. 

Among  the  women  of  to-day  there  is  a  larger  per- 
centage of  the  thoughtful  and  duty-loving  than  there 
was  fifty  years  ago,  but  as  lovers  of  our  country  and  as 
earnestly  longing  for  the  improvement  of  the  human 
race,  we  cannot  be  contented  while  any  women  fall  short 
of  their  destiny.  Frivolity,  light-mindedness,  and  ab- 
sense  of  a  sense  of  duty  and  of  discipline  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  women  of  any  one  class ;  they  may  be  found 
among  society  ladies,  among  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
professional  and  business  men,  down  to  the  factory  girls 
and  the  very  poorest  of  the  poor ;  but  in  all  these  ranks 
of  life  there  is  the  capacity  for  regeneration,  and,  what 
is  more,  a  large  number  of  the  women  in  each  of  these 
ranks  does  possess  the  sense  of  duty  and  is  capable  of 

52 


Women  as  Citizens 


excellent  work.  Even  now  we  see  much  of  it,  and 
amongst  ladies  of  leisure,  who  do  not  need  to  work  for 
their  own  or  for  their  children's  living,  we  see  noble 
women  who  work  hard  and  with  real  self-sacrifice  to 
benefit  and  to  bless  those  who  are  less  fortunate.  Sim- 
ilar endeavours  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  race  are 
found  in  women  of  all  ranks  of  life  down  to  the  wives 
of  working  men.  These  women  frequently  strive,  and 
not  without  success,  to  make  the  few  shillings  they  can 
command  keep  together  the  home  and  secure  the  welfare 
of  their  children. 

So  good  is  the  foundation  upon  which  we  have  to 
work  that  we  need  not  despair  of  seeing  a  still  larger 
proportion  of  our  women  not  only  potential  but  actual 
regenerators  of  the  race.  The  one  great  danger  which 
threatens  at  present  is  that  there  is  a  wave  of  irreligion 
passing  over  the  land.  It  is  not  so  much  that  there  is 
active  scepticism  or  honest  doubt  as  there  was  some 
years  ago,  but  that  in  some  extraordinary  way  people 
nowadays  do  not  actually  disbelieve,  and  the  want  of  re- 
ligion seems  to  be  due  more  to  a  want  of  interest  in  the 
inatter.  That  this  is  the  case  is  proved  by  the  tone  not 
only  of  novels  and  light  literature,  but  also  by  quite 
serious  works  written  by  men  and  women  who  earnestly 
desire  the  welfare  of  the  race.  In  these  books  the  au- 
thors invoke  every  lofty  motive  and  incentive  to  better- 
ment of  the  human  mind  except  that  fundamental  one 
of  "the  fear  of  the  Lord"  which  "is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom."    The  same  thing  is  to  be  seen  in  the  pictures 

of  the  present  day,  which  only  in  the  rarest  instances  are 

53 


Womanhood  and  Race-Regeneration 

religious  in  tone.  The  chief  inspiration  of  the  artists  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  was  religion, 
and  beyond  portrait  and  landscape  painting  there  was 
little  art  except  that  which  illustrated  religious  subjects ; 
but  now  the  walls  of  the  Academy  and  of  the  New  Gal- 
lery afford  ample  confirmation  of  the  melancholy  fact 
that  religion  has  passed  to  a  great  extent  out  of  the  lives 
and  thoughts  of  the  people.  It  is  said  by  some  observ- 
ers that  we  are  standing  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  era, 
and  that  a  wave  of  true  repentance  and  of  a  deepened 
religious  consciousness  is  about  to  sweep  over  the  sur- 
face of  affairs ;  it  may  be  so,  but  meanwhile  the  omens 
are  bad,  nor  do  we  see  any  signs  of  this  regeneration  in 
education,  in  literature,  or  in  art.  The  regeneration  of 
the  race  will  never  be  accomplished  until  the  women  of 
the  country,  themselves  deeply  convinced  of  the  impor- 
tance of  right  belief  and  right  practice,  devote  them- 
selves to  teaching  their  faith  to  their  children,  and  to 
requiring  it  in  a  practical  form  from  the  members  of 
their  household. 


54 


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